In his quest to see an elusive
warbler, a lifelong birder discovers that some species are indeed more
equal than others.

By
Thomas Urquhart

Abruptly the thrushes and towhees that had been vying with their songs
went still. Silence spread over the wood, broken only by the warning—a
sporadic tonk! —of a chipmunk sitting stock still on a log.
Up in a pine tree a red squirrel hunched itself into the nook of a branch.

I noticed none of this immediately. As it had been every morning that
week, my attention was focused laserlike on a triangle where two paths
diverged around a thicket of wild roses, home for the last four days
to a mourning warbler, a bird I had never seen. So called because of
the elegant black jabot that sets off the gray throat and yellow breast
of the male, this particular warbler is never abundant in Maine, and
because it is shy by nature, it's that much harder to find. Even during
a migration season that local ornithologists had already pronounced stellar,
a mourning warbler in these parts is what birders call a “good bird.”

And a life bird would be a fitting climax to the hours I had spent warbler
watching in Evergreen Cemetery during the past month. With the migration
dwindling daily, today was my last chance. I had been hunting since dawn.

In Maine, where I live, May is when waves
of migrating warblers fill the night skies, at dawn descending on city
parks and cemeteries. They are a colorful bunch. For me, the myriad combinations
of yellow and black and red and blue that brighten northern woods are
the real first impulse of spring.

Around Portland, Evergreen Cemetery—a stately place where the city's
grandees await the Day of Judgment—is the spot preferred by spring birders.
The hard core was already there the day I put in my first appearance
of the year. Judy Walker and Bill Hancock, clearly identified by their
Maine Audubon patches and caps, had been keeping track of the avian traffic
since dawn. The former editorial-page editor of the Portland Newspapers,
George Neavoll, tall and distinguished with his white mane, murmured
about a couple of rarities he thought he'd seen. Kay Gammon, the doyenne
of Portland birders, gently instructed newcomers and novices. As always,
my companion of choice was the novelist Monica Wood. Not only does she
have a vivacious redhead's enthusiasm, she knows her birds, and her generosity
toward our compatriots (who are, when all is said and done, a pretty
eccentric lot) tempers my less forgiving outlook.

The moment of truth announced itself with a flurry in the trees above
us. I reminded myself that hobbies should be approached with a Zenlike
attitude or they become gut-gnawing obsessions. But Zen was out the window.
No matter that I had started the morning mindful and open to whatever
might show up; species envy quickly took over. To pursue the fiery-faced
Blackburnian in the pine tree or the Wilson's, with its black yarmulke,
hopping about the bush nearby—that was the question. Even as I drew a
bead on a flitting shadow, I was mentally looking over my neighbors'
shoulders in case they had a lock on something more interesting. By the
time I had focused my binoculars, nothing was left but a quivering twig.
Warblers are as hyperactive as the mind of the birdwatcher who is unable
just to be present at so phenomenal a pageant.

I reminded myself that hobbies should be approached with a Zenlike attitude.
But Zen was out the window. No matter that I had started the morning
mindful and open to whatever might show up; species envy quickly took
over.

As the wave subsided, I tried to regain something of my earlier mindfulness.
What about the chickadee, beloved of bird feeders? When all these fancy
foreigners have left us for the winter, it is the chickadee that keeps
our spirits up. Why ignore it now? The one just down the path was a picture
of perkiness as it stropped its bill on a branch. Was it a bug or some
nesting material in its beak? By taking the time to watch even the commonest
bird, one can find it doing all sorts of interesting things. Birders
have special lists of birds they have seen singing, nesting, even defecating.
When another chickadee caught my eye and I turned my attention to it,
my high-minded resolution was rewarded. The black cap had misled me,
and the bird was actually a blackpoll warbler, in snappy black-and-white
plumage, and my first this year. I decided to leave for another time
the metaphysical aspects of my delight that an old reliable should have
metamorphosed into a glamorous summer visitor. All birds are equal, but
. . .

In broad outline the migratory season may be predictable,
but the way it unfolds is a continual surprise. This year temperatures
stayed lower than usual, and halfway through May the leaves were almost
a week behind, which made spotting easier. Windy mornings also kept the
birds closer to the ground, a godsend to warbler watchers, for whom stiff
necks are too often an occupational hazard. From day to day, different
species predominated. One morning the place was full of Nashville warblers;
the next, nothing but Canadas and their delicate black necklaces. When
the new undergrowth finally came in, the bushes trembled with unseen
birds, making my scalp itch.

One morning as I rested my back against a tree for a few minutes, I
found myself surrounded by a bevy of beautiful girls. Subtler perhaps
than their sharp-looking mates, which had been center stage the first
few weeks, they were quite as attractive: the soft, harmonious tones
of the black-throated blue warbler set off by the “pocket handkerchief” on
the wing she shares with the male; the yellow and olive decorum of the
yellowthroat. But my favorite will always be the redstart. What she lacks
in color (the red-and-black razzle-dazzle of her consort) she more than
makes up for in attitude. Her wings seem to be permanently half open,
and the sassy way she flutters about and flicks her tail says to all
the world that she's a corker and she knows it!

Saw
within a few feet a beautiful Mourning Warbler but Was so situated
Knee deep in the Mud that I could Not retrograde without Alarming
it. I preferred gazing at it as it innocently gazed at me hoping
it would fly at a Short distance, but it Moved with a Tweet and
out of sight in an instant. Much disap[p]ointed at My having lost
the only opportunity I Ever have had of procuring this rare Bird. —John
James Audubon, 1821

As the month advanced, the flood of migrants started to taper off and
with it, the birdwatchers. The morning after Memorial Day, Evergreen
was empty. A few warblers—hard to identify against the overcast sky—sang
high in the trees above ponds scummy with pine pollen. The sense of time
passing was autumnal. Just as I drove off, a handful of birders trickled
in.

I should have stayed. By noon the bush telegraph was abuzz: The mourning
warbler had arrived the night before. Projects shelved and lunch plans
rearranged, I grabbed the nearest field guide and hurried back.

The first person I bumped into was George, who had been there all morning.
He told me gleefully how crisp this particular individual's markings
were, more handsome than any he had seen before. “But he doesn't show
himself readily,” he warned, with more than a hint of pessimism. Monica,
on the other hand, believes in positive thought. She had already seen
the bird and met me by the pond. “I have a good feeling about this,” she
announced as a yellow warbler sang from an overhanging bush nearby.

Although we both knew it was what we wanted to do, rushing straight
for the thicket where the bird of the hour had been seen would have been
indecorous. Birdwatching has its etiquette. Along the way, we paused
to look at a yellowthroat hopping in the underbrush (in that setting
it might have been our bird) and a chickadee for good measure. Nonetheless,
we soon found ourselves at the place where the mourning warbler was said
to be pausing on its trip to Canada. Moving slowly and methodically down
the path, eyes trained on the ground, I paused every couple of steps
to scan the shrubbery around.

The roses provided impenetrable cover for a bird that “skulks in thickets,” as
Peterson laconically observes. But here and there a honeysuckle bush
reared above the tangle, if only the bird could be persuaded to check
us out. Monica pished softly, a sound that for some reason excites small
birds, and sure enough, the leaves jiggled and a bird with an olive back—could
it be?—bounced up to the top of one of the branches. This time, when
it turned out to be another yellowthroat, we did not disguise our disappointment.

I tried again the next morning, and the next. The mourning warbler was
still hanging around, but not for me, no matter how hard I looked.

The last morning I got to Evergreen Cemetery at 5:45. Monica
joined me, still ecstatic over seeing the mourning warbler, and equally
full of genuine commiseration for my failure to do so. “You know,” she
said, “there's a tiny part of me that wishes I hadn't seen it . . . so
I would still have it to look forward to.” For that morning I hated her
as only one collector—birdwatching being, after all, a form of collecting—can
hate another.

We were hovering between the thicket and the pond, not wanting to give
up but not wanting to miss anything else either, when a flock of little
birds overtook us. One landed at the bottom of a bush away from the water,
while another sat on a bare branch over the pond. I chose the former and
had just identified it as another yellowthroat when I heard an excited
whisper. “Thomas, it's him!” As I whipped around, something with feathers
“Moved with a Tweet and out of sight in an instant.” While we
thrashed the patch from the path, a song I hadn't heard before confirmed
Monica's identification: “short and rhythmic with rich, churring quality,”
as Sibley says. We heard it once more from further inside the thicket,
and then it just vanished.

“Did you see it?” Monica asked, but my desperate searching more than
told her I had not. Once again I went back to the rose thicket, scanned
it for the thousandth time. From its nest in a pine branch, a wood thrush
filled the morning with lovely song. A fitful rain started to spatter
the ground. When a leaf stirred in the corner of my eye, I swung my binoculars
around madly, only to find it was a raindrop instead of a bird. All one
could do was try to be philosophical. Birding is being at the right place
at the right time, and expecting the unexpected. In going after a specific
bird so single-mindedly these past mornings, I knew I was risking disappointment.
But it was the end of the season, and I felt I could afford to relax
my principles. Some birds are more equal than others.

In an instant the thrushes and towhees that had been singing so brilliantly
went still. A powerful shadow slid across my outer vision. The sudden
silence must have prodded my subconscious, because in a split second
my body had quickened, as if by adrenaline. In hardly more than another
second the bird had disappeared among the trees. An aura so compelling
could only mean a raptor; its intensity stretched the moment, making
time for surprising detail. A hint of pale about the rump had made me
think harrier, but the flight was wrong. Something told me the bird had
just taken wing and would land nearby. Sure enough, it perched not 20
yards away, and by that time I knew it had to be a goshawk.

One morning the place was full of
Nashville warblers; the next, nothing
but Canadas and their delicate black necklaces. When the new undergrowth
finally came in, the bushes trembled with unseen birds, making my scalp
itch.

Settling on a bare bough, it let go with a majestic defecation (one
for the shit list, I noted), then glared at me with baleful eyes the
color of its talons. Tonk! Tonk! In the stillness the wood
acknowledged the arrival of its lord. I stared and stared. Thrill at
this appearance, like a comet, overwhelmed the fading hopes of finding
my original quarry. Expect the unexpected. Though in one particular,
I might, like Audubon, be “much disappointed,” a “tiny part of me,” as
Monica would say, could now look forward to seeing the mourning warbler
another—less expected—time.

Thomas Urquhart is a writer and the former director of the Maine Audubon
Society.